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<title>Wake Up and Smell the Ashes by NervousAsexual</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27011962">Wake Up and Smell the Ashes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual'>NervousAsexual</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [14]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Half-Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Burns, Gen, Mercy Killing, Nightmares, Pain, this is certainly a thing i have created</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:02:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>258</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27011962</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He is burning.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [14]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960987</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wake Up and Smell the Ashes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Whumptober prompt #14--fire</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It burns.</p><p>
It burns.</p><p>
He can't see what's happening but he is afraid. His skin bubbles like a sunburn before it burns into him, searing his legs and melting the polyester Combine jumpsuit to his body. He's burning.</p><p>
He screams for help but his voice is muffled. It could almost be a nightmare. Can't run, can't scream. He wants to wake up now. He wants to wake up and see his husband next to him, go downstairs and find his sister cooking breakfast, her twins outside playing on the tire swing. He wants to go home.</p><p>
His head hurts, so badly that he can barely feel his hands scratching at his scalp, pulling his hair, begging himself to wake up, please, please wake up.</p><p>
Nightmares can't hurt like this.</p><p>
He doesn't know where he is or how he got here or why he's burning and he doesn't understand why no one hears him screaming or smells his charred flesh or sees the smoke that has to be enveloping him right now. He wants it to stop. Everything has to stop.</p><p>
He screams and cries and stumbles, trying to keep his footing. If he keeps moving he might find someone, they might be able to stop this, something somewhere might change and this could be over. He begs without words.</p><p>
It burns.</p><p>
He burns.</p><p>
And then a hand on his shoulder. A voice in his ear: "I still remember your true face, brother." Then a blast and a pain and he stumbles for the last time.</p><p>
After that, nothing.</p>
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